Season series: This is the third and final meeting. The Kings won the previous two games and are 5-1-0 in their last six against the Blues. Los Angeles totaled 10 goals in the two wins over St. Louis this season.

Big story: The Blues try to break out of their recent funk, having dropped three of their last four games. The Kings are battling for playoff positioning with St. Louis as they attempt to extend their recent good fortunes on the road Thursday with the second of five straight games away from Staples Center.

Team Scope:

Kings: Los Angeles broke a three-game road losing streak and ended a scoring drought that lasted two games with a dramatic 5-4 victory at the Chicago Blackhawks on Monday. Anze Kopitar's goal in the second period put an end to over 150 straight minutes without a score. Captain Dustin Brown would seal the win for the Kings on a goal with less than 90 seconds remaining in regulation as the team got their road trip off to the right start.

"We didn't score the last two games, so it was nice to get on the board and off that schneid," Kopitar said. "Coming in [to United Center] and scoring five goals, it's a big deal. We just stuck with it and it paid [off] in the end."

Blues: Coach Ken Hitchcock held a closed-door meeting with his team after the Blues put a season-high 43 shots on goal against the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday but fell 3-0. The defeat ended a four-game home winning streak for St. Louis. When Hitchcock finally addressed reporters after the meeting, he shared a sense of urgency for getting the entire organization focused toward succeeding this season.

"It's going to take a deeper buy-in by the group for us to be successful. I think that's going to be a partnership by management, coaches and players. It's going to have to be deeper. It's not deep enough," Hitchcock said.

Who's hot: Kopitar has 10 points (three goals, 7 assists) in his past 10 games for Los Angeles. … T.J. Oshie has two goals and an assist over his past three games for St. Louis.

Injury report: Defenseman Willie Mitchell remains as day-to-day with a knee injury, while blueliner Matt Greene (back injury) is out indefinitely for the Kings. … For the Blues, Jamie Langenbrunner is out for the season with a hip injury.

Hitch has to go. He's talked a big game, and this team doesn't care any more. He was a scrub in Columbus who got lucky for one year, and he's still a scrub.

But the bigger problem is that until further notice, Armstrong is the typical tight-fisted cheap do-nothing owner that the Blues always have--this team continues to quit on this city and its fans, and he does nothing. No statements, no moves, zilch.

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Nyghtewynd wrote:But the bigger problem is that until further notice, Armstrong is the typical tight-fisted cheap do-nothing owner that the Blues always have--this team continues to quit on this city and its fans, and he does nothing. No statements, no moves, zilch.

Armstrong is not the owner, he's the GM. The owner, Tom Stillman (and group), is his boss. Armstrong can only make moves within the budget and limitations that Stillman gives him. And within those confines, Armstrong has made several great moves.

Nyghtewynd wrote:But the bigger problem is that until further notice, Armstrong is the typical tight-fisted cheap do-nothing owner that the Blues always have--this team continues to quit on this city and its fans, and he does nothing. No statements, no moves, zilch.

Armstrong is not the owner, he's the GM. The owner, Tom Stillman (and group), is his boss. Armstrong can only make moves within the budget and limitations that Stillman gives him. And within those confines, Armstrong has made several great moves.

Nyghtewynd wrote:But the bigger problem is that until further notice, Armstrong is the typical tight-fisted cheap do-nothing owner that the Blues always have--this team continues to quit on this city and its fans, and he does nothing. No statements, no moves, zilch.

Armstrong is not the owner, he's the GM. The owner, Tom Stillman (and group), is his boss. Armstrong can only make moves within the budget and limitations that Stillman gives him. And within those confines, Armstrong has made several great moves.

Exactly. And we currently have the leagues lowest payroll and everyone has been very clear about the fact that it's going to remain that way.

Anyone expecting this team to suddenly start spending close to the cap is just flat out wrong and setting themselves up for disappointment.

As for Hitch.....I typically laugh when someone want's to run off yet another head coach....but he's really starting to bother me.

As was well discussed in the twitter-vese last night....how does he demote Bergie to the 4th line and play him on wing yet Perron still resides atop the lines when he shouldn't even be dressed.

Porter a healthy scratch?

You want lack of buy in...look at 57, 74, 27, 10......these guys are playing selfish hockey every shift and Bergie and Porter who have been two of your least selfish players this year are the ones that get the 'wake up call'?

The only way I can possibly rationalize this perhaps Hitch thinks Bergie will get the message and he realizes that the others are beyond resurrection.

Something is terribly wrong structurally when all of your best players 42,27,74.....are all playing terrible. These guys are much better then what we're seeing on the ice.

And still leading the team in goals and points. Not that I disagree with your sentiment. Sell high? Maybe it's time- better now than when he is in a another slump, which we all know is coming sooner or later.

I think we have a Mike Keenan-ish situation; we have a coach who plays favorites and can't see past that. Here's why I say this:

David Backes, all kidding aside, seems like a stand-up man, a hard-playing guy you'd expect to be a strong Captain. I think he's not that strong Captain that we need because his hands are tied....by Hitch.

I think Chris Stewart, after doing poorly in Hitch's system, stood up to him and got some breathing room and that's when he started scoring again. Entirely conjecture but again, this is how it makes sense to me. Primadonna? He isn't a D player, pure and simple. Mind that Brett Hull wasn't a D player much until Hitchcock instilled it in him. That doesn't work on everyone and I think Chris might be purposely screwing up on the D to spite him.

David Perron on ANY line is just flat stupid unless Hitch likes the guy, feels sorry for him or whatever have you. He might consider Perron some sort of warrior for coming back from a bad Concussion and play hard, so he lets him get away with stuff. Name one coach who wouldn't have had him ride pine at least once for the kind of bs that he's put on the ice. Just one. I'll even take a PeeWee coach.

We're carrying 3 netminders with an uncertain future. I totally believe at this point that we are going to be trading Halak after sending down Elliott for conditioning only because of Halak's salary. Hitch in the past has been dedicated to ONE netminder, whether that was Eddie Belfour or whoever else. No one runs a 3 netminder rotation unless you're either the Flyers with the fall-apart netminding kit (Aka the Bad Luck Injury Express) or desperate. We're neither. Halak should start if he's the starter, if not Jake Allen, if not Brian Elliott. We have three capable netminders and none of them are getting enough time between the pipes to make a stand.

We have an offense that is 'dumping' 30+ shots a night at the opposition and allowing <20 shots on goal a night with the exception of the LA game. I think that proves that our greatest strength is what's killing us: Our D. There's no balance, only Hitch's D-First system and it's obvious that this team has either screwed up on understanding it or are lazy playing in that system which the results are killing us. For both there's only one person that needs to be held responsible first, the same person who won't bag skate this team, won't do more than have meetings in closed rooms, have quotable monologues with the press and won't reward for success and BENCH for failure.

And he's the guy that needs to be fired. I said it 20 games ago, I will say it again: There's a reason Columbus, after making the playoffs for the first time fired him the next year.

And still leading the team in goals and points. Not that I disagree with your sentiment. Sell high? Maybe it's time- better now than when he is in a another slump, which we all know is coming sooner or later.

No doubt.....and it's not just the plus minus thing...if that was the case we'd be unloading Pie too.

But I just don't see how a cash strapped team could ever feel comfortable giving Stewart a long term deal. I know yesterday that Gordon wrote saying that shouldn't be an issue because they could always unload him latter if he get's lazy, but what he didn't think about is signing Stewart will probably mean you can't resign one of you other guys this offseason.

Unload him now. Hell, package him with DP and get a really nice return and open up a lot of $'s to resign our other FA's and to get that top 4 left defenseman.

Nyghtewynd wrote:But the bigger problem is that until further notice, Armstrong is the typical tight-fisted cheap do-nothing owner that the Blues always have--this team continues to quit on this city and its fans, and he does nothing. No statements, no moves, zilch.

Armstrong is not the owner, he's the GM. The owner, Tom Stillman (and group), is his boss. Armstrong can only make moves within the budget and limitations that Stillman gives him. And within those confines, Armstrong has made several great moves.

And still leading the team in goals and points. Not that I disagree with your sentiment. Sell high? Maybe it's time- better now than when he is in a another slump, which we all know is coming sooner or later.

No doubt.....and it's not just the plus minus thing...if that was the case we'd be unloading Pie too.

But I just don't see how a cash strapped team could ever feel comfortable giving Stewart a long term deal. I know yesterday that Gordon wrote saying that shouldn't be an issue because they could always unload him latter if he get's lazy, but what he didn't think about is signing Stewart will probably mean you can't resign one of you other guys this offseason.

Unload him now. Hell, package him with DP and get a really nice return and open up a lot of $'s to resign our other FA's and to get that top 4 left defenseman.

I'm not advocating a trade with what I'm about to say but I was thinking about this last night. Say if it came down to it, the Blues had to decide between DP and Stewart. Right now, I think they would take Stewart. Both have decent trade value, I'd say, Stewart's is probably as high as it's going to get. Stewart has proved he can score in bunches in this league. He may be a streaky player, but outside of last year, he's always put up decent points.

That's not to say Perron has not, but clearly he is off his game this year. Offensive zone penalty after offensive zone penalty, his ability to hog the puck and turn it over without making a play, etc. is just growing tiresome. I could see the Blues moving one of them (or both like you said), but I'm not sure what kind of return they'd get. A lot of buyers out there, not sure there are too many sellers. But we'll see. 5 days until we know for sure.